Altera Corporation

Bruce B Pederson

Jim Park

Stephanie T Tran

Guu Lin

Jay Schleicher

Andy Louie Lee

Sergey Yuryevich Shumarayev

David Lewis

Richard G Cliff

Rakesh H Patel

David Wolk Mendel

Michael David Hutton

James G Schleicher

Brad Vest

Vaughn Betz

Christopher F Lane

Srinivas T Reddy

Cameron R McClintock

David Edward Jefferson

Wei-Jen Huang

Tony K Ngai

Ninh D Ngo

Manuel M Mejia

Victor Maruri

Andrew Leaver

Peter J Kazarian

Methods and apparatus for novel routing structures and methods that improve fitting of user-defined functions onto programmable logic devices. In particular, second time fitting is improved. Exemplary structures and methods include allowing product terms to be expanded using inputs from more than one neighboring macrocell by providing multiple expansion and bypassing paths. Also, product term OR shifting prevents macrocell output stages from being buried and made inaccessible, and macrocell outputs are provided on expander word lines, increasing efficiency of those lines, as well as conserving routing resources. Expansion, bypassing, OR shifting, and expander word lines may terminate at logic array block boundaries or may continue beyond these boundaries to other logic array blocks.

Flexible macrocell interconnect

A method and computer readable medium for implementing redundancy on a programmable logic device with improved interconnect efficiency. The method and medium includes: determining if a first wire segment of a first wire channel requires a programmed connection to a resource in the row furthest from the buffer driving the first wire segment and spanned by the first wire segment; reserving a next segment in the first channel if the first wire segment of the first wire channel requires a programmed connection to a resource in the row furthest from the buffer driving the first wire segment and spanned by the first wire segment; and assuming a maximum delay path including the programmable signal propagation delay of the reserved next segment and a stitching element coupled between the first segment and the reserved next segment of the first channel.

Redundancy method and software to provide improved interconnect efficiency for programmable logic devices

A carry chain in a logic array block includes a first path connecting a first series of logic elements in the logic array block, where the logic elements in the first series is a subset of the set of logic elements in the logic array block. The carry chain also includes a second path connecting a second series of logic elements in the logic array block, where one or more of the logic elements in the second series are not in the first series.

Bypass-able carry chain in a programmable logic device

A programmable logic device has many regions of programmable logic, together with relatively general-purpose, programmable, interconnection resources that can be used to make interconnections between virtually any of the logic regions. In addition, various types of more local interconnection resources are associated with each logic region for facilitating the making of interconnections between adjacent or nearby logic regions without the need to use the general-purpose interconnection resources for those interconnections. The local interconnection resources support flexible clustering of logic regions via relatively direct and therefore high-speed interconnections, preferably in both horizontal and vertical directions in the typically two-dimensional array of logic regions. The logic region clustering options provided by the local interconnection resources are preferably boundary-less or substantially boundary-less within the array of logic regions.

Interconnection resources for programmable logic integrated circuit devices

A programmable logic device has a plurality of super-regions of programmable circuitry disposed on the device in a two-dimensional array of such super-regions. Each super-region includes a plurality of regions of programmable logic and a region of programmable memory. Each logic region includes a plurality of subregions of programmable logic. Each super-region has associated interconnection resources for allowing communication between the logic and memory regions of that super-region without the need to use, for such relatively local interconnections, the longer-length inter-super-region interconnection resources that are also provided on the device.

Programmable logic device architectures with super-regions having logic regions and memory region

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Bruce B Pederson